well, from the art in the book i assume there's some for of personal bat-wing flyers that people use and coglayers could make personal helicopters, but are there any other methods of flying for the dragonmech world? i assume flying a modern-like airplane would be too damn dangerous but what about airships that are armed and armored? are there none around?

also trains, i assume aren't used because once again too dangerous but i swear dwarfs would have them underground for a plethora of reasons, possibly making an underground network to get from one place to another in highpoint.

finally automobiles, i think anything but tanks and motorcycles would be unrealistic for the world, but how would you go about making them? i was hoping to have a coglayer soon with a motorcycle, it shouldn't be that hard for a world that can make mechs.

so mr. goodman whatcha think? any of these lurking about or they just not functional?

I'd answer this the same as with the question about multi-legged mechs: sure, all the vehicles you listed would be much more practical, but they're not as cool. That's pretty much the major rationale for giant humanoid mecha in any setting, really. They don't make sense, but they're cool, so we'll just pretend they do.

I'd say the post-lunar rain terrain would be too rough to be passable to wheeled vehicles in many places. (Although the book does mention mech tribes towing wagons behind their mechs.) The total lack of maintained roads wouldn't help, either. I could see a few tanks and other off-road vehicles existing, but they'd be rare pet projects of individual coglayers. Also, in the real world the tracklaying chassis was invented as a solution to trench warfare. Without that impetus, and with mechs already available, caterpillar treads might never be invented.

Airships, well, I can't see how they could survive the lunar rain. Remember that a heavy night can sandblast/burn a leather cloak into uselessness. It'd be really tough to make a gasbag that could take that without constant repair, and folding the bag every night would be hugely impractical. That said, I can imagine very rare and expensive magical/technological solutions to the problem. Hm, how about an alliance of dwarves and elves building an airship with magical protection and using it to challenge the hegemony of the city-mechs with their greater mobility? They'd be immune to the usual raiders, and batteries of javelin racks supported by powerful elven mages could keep the lunar dragons away. A variant Protection From Arrows spell combined with blanket energy resistance would guard against lunar rain and dragon breath. Could be an interesting plot hook.

Now, trains would make a lot of sense. The intro even mentions the dwarves using steam-powered tunnel cars long before the lunar rain, so I can definitely see them having a large network at this point. I could see a dwarven initiative to build surface (or shallow-tunnel) rail lines as well, to facilitate long-range trade. This could produce plenty of adventure, too: guarding the construction workers, patrolling the line for breaks, foiling (or assisting) sabotage attempts from jealous mech traders...

not only would you ahve the lunar rain fouling the tracks on the surface, but you would have thieves, both above and below ground, stealing track for the metal

or, even worse, powerful monsters setting up ambushes for the trains in remote areas

as for 'cars' i, personally, would like to see some tracked variations on mechs (higher speed and ignores some difficult terrain, but it's manuverability would be very low)

i imagine anything light enough to fly properly would be at a marked disadvantage against any lunar dragons, and easily danaged by lunar rain, and since the lunar dragons & lunar rain were the main reason for the development of the mechs, they would not have been considered practicaly applications of steam technology

(on the other hand, i wonder how big a rotor arm you would need to get a smaller mech air borne...)

as for the airship, i figured a levitate spell that was combined up to the right size/weight limit wouldn't be too difficult in comparison to a small citymech. it'd probly be made all metal and indeed have batteries of javelin racks and using rotor arms or something close for propulsion. or just a combined fly spell if they could afford it. I don't think it'd be that fragile at all. but they'd be RARE, as in one or two maybe that aren't pet projects of mages/coglayers.

i'm sure the dwarfs could somehow get around the metal track theivery problem, or they just might use STONE instead, one way or another....and i figured they'd be pretty exclusively underground...

I figured that I would take the rules for a wagon from the PHB, and then allow a steam engine with two boilers to make it move. But it would be subject to the exact limitations that regular wagons have. Possibly the PCs could figure out the weight/cost requirements for making it out of steel?

As for wheeled or tracked mechs, that would be a nice idea.

The zeppelins and airships could be helped along in the design process by the Janzeter's Amazing Mobile Cannon profile for the blimps. Possibly design them really large and use the bouyant force to hang a mech beneath them?

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